Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

People in our health service work extraordinarily hard, in many cases under very difficult circumstances. We know that in government. The Taoiseach is a doctor, and he has a very clear understanding of the way hospitals work. What we are at here is about short-term planning for what we know will be a very pressurised winter period, and addressing all issues to do with that, from capacity, to try to de-escalate challenges in advance of the Christmas period within hospitals, to increasing investment with regard to social care to get people out of hospital care, where possible, and ensure they are looked after properly in different settings, to create space within hospitals. We are also trying to have an honest conversation about rostering to make sure that the clinical leadership and health team leadership is in place over the most pressurised time of year. Nobody is arguing that it is not a year-round challenge to address capacity issues. That is the reason we saw massive increases in the budget for the health budget.

Much of it goes into increasing capacity, including staffing and capital investment. However, there is a short-term challenge for which we need to plan. To answer the Deputy's question, the winter plan will be finalised shortly and available for people to see.

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